June 19th. -- I had only got as far as the top of the stairs when the locking of Laura's door suggested
to me the precaution of also locking my own door, and keeping the key safely about me while I was
out of the room. My journal was already secured with other papers in the table drawer, but my writing
materials were left out. These included a seal, bearing the common device of two doves drinking out
of the same cup, and some sheets of blotting-paper, which had the impression on them of the closing
lines of my writing in these pages traced during the past night. Distorted by the suspicion which had
now become a part of myself, even such trifles as these looked too dangerous to be trusted without a
guard -- even the locked table drawer seemed to be not sufficiently protected in my absence until the
means of access to it had been carefully secured as well.

I found no appearance of any one having entered the room while I had been talking with Laura. My
writing materials (which I had given the servant instructions never to meddle with) were scattered over
the table much as usual. The only circumstance in connection with them that at all struck me was that
the seal lay tidily in the tray with the Pencils and the wax. It was not in my careless habits (l am sorry
to say) to put it there, neither did I remember putting it there. But as I could not call to mind, on the
other hand, where else I had thrown it down, and as I was also doubtful whether I might not for once
have laid it mechanically in the right place, I abstained from adding to the perplexity with which the day's
events had filled my mind by troubling it afresh about a trifle. I locked the door, put the key in my Pocket,
and went downstairs.

Madame Fosco was alone in the hall looking at the weatherglass.

`Still falling,' she said. `I am afraid we must expect more rain.'

Her face was composed again to its customary expression and its customary colour. But the hand with
which she pointed to the dial of the weather-glass still trembled.

Could she have told her husband already that she had overheard Laura reviling him, in my company, as
a `spy?' My strong suspicion that she must have told him, my irresistible dread (all the more overpowering
from its very vagueness) of the consequences which might follow, my fixed conviction, derived from
various little self-betrayals which women notice in each other, that Madame Fosco, in spite of her well-
assumed external civility, had not forgiven her niece for innocently standing between her and the legacy
of ten thousand pounds -- all rushed upon my mind together, all impelled me to speak in the vain hope
of using my own influence and my own powers of persuasion for the atonement of Laura's offence.

`May I trust to your kindness to excuse me, Madame Fosco, if I venture to speak to you on an exceedingly
painful subject?'

She crossed her hands in front of her and bowed her head solemnly, without uttering a word, and without
taking her eyes off mine for a moment.

`When you were so good as to bring me back my handkerchief,' I went on, `l am very, very much afraid
you must have accidentally heard Laura say something which I am unwilling to repeat, and which I will
not attempt to defend. I will only venture to hope that you have not thought it of sufficient importance to
be mentioned to the Count?'

`I think it of no importance whatever,' said Madame Fosco sharply and suddenly. `But,' she added, resuming
her icy manner in a moment, `I have no secrets from my husband even in trifles. When he noticed just
now that I looked distressed, it was my painful duty to tell him why I was distressed, and I frankly acknowledge
to you, Miss Halcombe, that I have told him.'

I was prepared to hear it, and yet she turned me cold all over when she said those words.

`Let me earnestly entreat you, Madame Fosco -- let me earnestly entreat the Count -- to make some
allowances for the sad position in which my sister is placed. She spoke while she was smarting under